Today, there is a HUGE lie circulating on the Internet. It has nothing to do with a celebrity marriage or political scandal. This lie has to do with … Internet Marketing!
To be specific, many ‘gurus’ are claiming that certain niches have too much competition. It is their belief that certain keywords and entire niches have become over saturated with competing websites.
Their proof is a simple ‘Google’ search for the keyword or phrase in question. For example, at the time of this article, the keyword ‘Insurance’ shows 455 million other websites listed. The keyword ‘Auto Insurance’ has 84 million sites listed.
So, why is there so much competition of this niche? Why are so many webmasters creating pages in this market? That’s simple: MONEY!
If you’re an AdSense publisher, you should know that advertisers are paying more than 40 per click in the Auto Insurance market.
If you’re an Insurance agent, you know that if someone becomes your customer, you can make hundreds a year off of their policy.
If you’re a publisher, you should know that people use the Internet for research before making most purchase – including Auto Insurance.
There is a ton of money exchanging hands in this Market.
So, for ‘the new kid on the block’ (i.e. YOU), There’s no sense even trying to compete with 200 million other websites. After all, in the minds of consumers, would “200 million-and-1” sites really make a difference?
Obvious, if we stopped here, we might tend to agree with the gurus. ‘There’s just too much competition in the Insurance niche to compete.’
‘There’s too much competition in the mesothelioma niche to compete!’ There’s too much competition in almost every market … to compete!
The problem is that they are misreading the data! And, this mistake may be costing hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars each month in lost revenue.
Go to your computer and ‘Google’ the keyword Insurance (without quotes or brackets). Write down the number of websites returned.
As I said earlier, at the time of this article there are 455 million web pages listed for this keyword.
Now, the fun begins! Look just to the right of the Google search box. You should see the word ‘Preferences’. Click on it. A new screen will appear.
This screen allows you to change the way Google finds and displays your searches. Scroll down to the bottom of this page, and look for the words ‘Number Of Results.’
This tells Google how many websites to display on your page at a time. Most likely this number is set on 10.
That means that when you do a search for Insurance, Google will display 10 results per page.
Next to this number is a drop down arrow. Click this arrow and change it to 100. Now, 100 websites will be displayed at a time.
After this change is made, be sure to click ‘Save Preferences’ in the lower right hand corner.
When you click ‘Save Preferences’ click ‘OK’ and you’ll be taken back to your search screen.
Now, scroll down to the very bottom of this page. Youll see the Google logo. Under this logo, you’ll see the numbers 1 thru 10. Click on 10 this will take you to the 10th page of your search.
And, since there are 100 results on each page, you’re going to the 1,000th search result. (Maybe!More on that later!!)
OK. I just click on the number 10, and guess what. My screen is only displaying results 900-933…not 900-1000. Why?
Read the message Google included with your search. Most read, ‘In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 933 already displayed.’
What does this mean? In Google’s estimation, only 933 websites in the Insurance niche have content that is relevant enough to display to their customer. 933 web pages out of 455 million! The remaining 454,999,067 websites were either irrelevant or duplicate content.
933 websites … worldwide … are considered relevant for a high traffic, high paying keyword like ‘Insurance!’
So, if you were competing with 455 million websites, I would say there is too much competition in that particular niche.
But, when only 933 web pages contain relevant content… I would conclude that this niche is ‘ripe’ for the taking.
And remember, advertisers are willing to pay you 30-40 per click!
So, the next time a guru tells you that a market is over saturated, or that there’s too much competition, maybe you should examine their motives.
Maybe they don’t want YOU there, because they don’t want YOU to become website number 934!
Stop listening to the lies of the so-called gurus. There is money to be made in almost every market. IF, and only IF you supply relevant, non-duplicate content!
